


It Had Been Hard

by goofball46



Category: Orange is the New Black
Genre: F/F, but she still has a cool pov, she's less of a bamf than alex, this is in piper's pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-03 13:19:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1070919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goofball46/pseuds/goofball46
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Piper's out of jail. Alex isn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Had Been Hard

It had been hard, at first.

Because he was always asking questions, questions that he shouldn't have to ask, questions that she shouldn't have to answer, and questions that Alex would already know the answer to, because she had been there with her.

It was hard because he hadn't changed a single bit, but she had. Because she had grown, she had seen herself, and she knew she didn't fit in, but Larry... well, Larry wasn't like her. He always knew what to say, to her parents, to their friends, to everyone, but not to her, not anymore.

Because now the line between him and Alex wasn't a clearly defined three and a half years anymore, and she could honestly compare the two, and hated the fact that she knew who she would choose, if only it were that simple.

Because Alex was soft and clever and could challenge her, whereas Larry always agreed with her because he was supposed to, and because Alex could talk to her for hours, while Larry always had something else that could take precedent over her, something that needed to be done before they could talk.

Alex had been like that when they were younger, Piper muses, except Alex actually had to do things while Larry simply didn't care that much about the subtle references that dead authors had put into Piper's favorite books. Neither had had time for her.

But maybe it could be different, maybe because Alex wasn't doing that anymore, or maybe because Larry could realize what it was like without her, maybe she'd find that they had time for her.

She'd never know, though, because Alex was still locked up, and Piper belonged with Larry, right? And Larry would stay busy, he always would, because he didn't care enough.

"It's over," he'd told her. "Let's forget it happened, okay? Let's make our life."

But she didn't want to forget, because that was her life, and they couldn't just pretend that things are all fucking okay.

She broke up with Larry five months and sixteen days after her release from Litchfield. He understood, but they still fought over it, which Piper felt was right, because they should fight, right? Because it meant that some part of them still cared. He told her that she couldn't make it without him, that he always helped her through her nightmares, that he put up with her screaming through the night when she had nightmares about Alex being stuck in SHU or in the washing machine, when she dreamed that that fucking meth head Doggett was still after her, when she started thinking that since Doggett was still in there, she'd find a way to get to Alex and hurt her.

"Do you know how hard it is to be with you?" he'd yelled at her. Piper had started crying then, she always did, and she cursed herself for it. "You still like that Alex girl, don't you?"

"I didn't just like her, Larry, God, how hard is that to understand?" she'd sobbed at him. "I fucking loved her, okay, and now she's stuck in that awful place with that fucking psycho who tried to kill me!"

"I feel like I'm stuck there in the past, because you won't move on, Pipes!"

"Move on?" Piper laughed then, pushing back her hair. "Are you fucking kidding me? After Doggett attacked me, I was in SHU for over a month. A month, with no human contact except for the guards, who never talked to me, just watched me shower on the rare occasions when I was allowed to. The only voices I heard were my own, and the screams from the girls around me, so don't fucking tell me to move on."

"Piper, it was so long ago!"

"Not for me." Piper shook her head. "No, I relive that every single night of my life."

They'd officially ended it then, and Piper found a relatively cheap apartment in a small city and lived alone. She gave up on soap, because really, making fucking soap was not her life's calling. She missed traveling, she missed adventure, and she missed having someone to hold her at night. That was another thing that was different between Larry and Alex - Alex always held her at night. Larry, on the other hand, slept on the left side of the bed and on the right side of his body, so his back was always to her. She started to read again, everything she could get her hands on, and when she couldn't find something to read, she wrote. She wrote about Alex, about Larry, about Crazy Eyes and Nichols and Red, and even about Doggett. She didn't have much money to pay for rent, but the landlord was a friend of hers, and he let it slide. Piper picked up a job in the city, a waitressing job, and that was enough to support her for then. She had her phone, but mostly it stayed abandoned next to her bed. No one called her, except for her mother every other month to tell her that she shouldn't be a waitress, and really, why couldn't she get back together with Larry? This was part of the reason Piper was so surprised when the phone rang one Thursday morning. The recording played, telling her that an inmate from Litchfield was calling. She pressed one, but God, it'd been so long...

"Hello?" she asked tentatively.

There was a deep, shaky breath on the other side. "Hey." There was a relieved laugh. "I got the number right."

Piper clutched her phone tighter, knuckles whitening against the plastic. "A-Alex?"

She laughed, sounding on the verge of tears. "Hey, kid. I'm glad you remember."

Piper's eyes welled up with her own tears. As if forgetting were an option. "Yeah," she managed. "Yeah, I remember."

"I'm sorry that I never called," Alex breathed out. "I wanted to, God, I wanted to, but I couldn't bring myself to. I'd dial, then just hang up without sending it through. Because I knew it would hurt me, and fuck, that sounds selfish."

"Why did you?" Piper asked softly. "Call, I mean. Because I'm glad you did, but... I mean, why now?"

"I don't know." Alex sniffled into the phone, and Piper's heart ached imagining her holding back tears. "I miss you, I guess."

"I miss you, too," Piper responded.

"Morello visited Nicky yesterday," Alex told her. "I'm glad she's happy, but..."

"Yeah." There was a pause. "It's easy to get lonely and it's easy to get too used to that."

Alex gave a broken laugh on the other side. "Fuck, when did you get so profound, kid?"

"That's what happens when I spend too much time with my thoughts, I guess."

"What've you been up to?"

"I took your advice," Piper said.

"What?"

"About fixing the résumé. I'm a waitress now."

"How's that going?"

Piper almost laughed. She felt so out of place talking to Alex of all people about something commonplace as a job. She wanted to say something worthwhile,   
wanted to say "I love you," or "I'm not with Larry," or "My boss took a vacation to Cambodia this summer and I thought of us." Instead, she simply said, "It's okay. It's impossibly mundane compared to our life before."

"I want you to know," Alex said suddenly, "that if I went back... if I were to do it again..." She swallows. "I'd treat you right, kid. I'd make sure you knew that, you know, I love you."

"Don't say that," Piper whispered fervently. "Don't you dare, because I don't regret a minute of it."

Alex laughed self-deprecatingly. "I fucked up your life."

"The years I spent traveling with you were the best years of my life. Not because of the illegal shit. Not even because of the travel and adventure, though that was a plus."

"Why then?"

"Because I was with you." Piper pushed back her hair. "And because that was enough."

There was a pause. "I don't know how I can't make it through this without you."

"Just remember what's waiting for you when you get out."

"Waiting?" Piper could clearly envision Alex's eyebrows raising in surprise. "You didn't marry him."

Piper shrugged despite the fact that Alex couldn't see her. "I loved him. I'm in love with you."

Piper could hear a guard shouting in the distance, and Alex sighed into the phone. "I have to go." Piper's grip on her phone tightened.

"Now?"

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Piper promised. "You better call again soon."

"Yeah, I promise. I don't know how I'll survive if I spend the rest of my sentence living for nothing more than ten stolen minutes with you where I can pretend to live a life with some semblance of normality."

"You can be really fucking poetic sometimes," Piper murmured into the phone, causing them both to laugh softly. "You'll get through. You have to, because I heart you, Alex Vause."

"I heart you, too, Piper Chapman."


End file.
